Defuse Quotes & Sayings

Anytime you're feeling stressed, anxious, or depressed, ask yourself, "What story is my mind telling me now?" Then once you've identified it, defuse it. — Russ Harris

I'm one of those people who lives for the moment. If you concern yourself with what's going to happen a year from now, or five years from now, you defuse the moment. Whatever comes, comes. For this time I enjoy the ascent. I don't worry about anything except getting thinner thighs. — Oprah Winfrey

We're viewed as equals - but we're still not there yet. [ ... ] The challenge for our girls, I think, is dealing with that resistance. How can we lift and defuse it, how do we make it so our equality is not so threatening? Our girls are going to have to contend with that. I contend with it right now in every realm I operate in. — Meryl Streep

Strong limits on carbon pollution will save Americans money, create jobs, improve our health, and help defuse climate change. — Frances Beinecke

One of the reasons surgeons have so much trouble separating Siamese twins is that nobody gets to do many of them. On the table, the anatomy is so different from normal, that you're constantly trying to figure out, 'Can I cut this? Does this wire lead to what?' It's like trying to defuse a bomb. — Ben Carson

Our training pushes us to develop a new set of instincts: instead of reacting to danger with a fight-or-flight adrenaline rush, we're trained to respond unemotionally by immediately prioritizing threats and methodically seeking to defuse them. We go from wanting to bolt for the exit to wanting to engage and understand what's going wrong, then fix — Chris Hadfield

TEN RULES FOR WINNING THE GAME OF CONFIDENCE The actions of confidence come first; the feelings of confidence come later. Genuine confidence is not the absence of fear; it is a transformed relationship with fear. Negative thoughts are normal. Don't fight them; defuse them. Self-acceptance trumps self-esteem. True success is living by your values. Hold your values lightly, but pursue them vigorously. Don't obsess about the outcome; get passionate about the process. Don't fight your fear: allow it, befriend it, and channel it. Failure hurts - but if we're willing to learn, it's a wonderful teacher. The key to peak performance is total engagement in the task. — Russ Harris

I blew out a breath, took a couple steps back, and flopped in one of the battered chairs that line the wall, trying, with my casual pose, to defuse the situation. Adam, I don't have a sense to be afraid of Sam in the state he's in now. I don't know why you think I'd be smart enough to be afraid of you. — Patricia Briggs

If a violent person wishes to attack us, let us send him a gentle phrase as this will defuse his violence. — Samael Aun Weor

A great many grown-up and intelligent people believe, or pretend to believe, that by behaving in a friendly and accommodating way to our attackers, we will show them that they have nothing to fear from us and so defuse their wrath. The idea that such behavior would be taken by a ruthless and implacable enemy only as a sign of weakness is as foreign to them as the idea of honor itself. — James Bowman

If I'm in an uncomfortable situation, I think I can say something funny to defuse it. Sometimes you can't. — Jack Whitehall

Working with him was sort of like trying to defuse a bomb with somebody standing behind you and every now and then clashing a pair of cymbals together. In a word, upsetting. — Stephen King

The stupidity of a well-placed "dude" can really defuse a situation — Chris Lynch

It is a sad irony that many countries possessing natural resources with high income potential have floundered into civil strife as factions compete for their share of the bounty, often monopolized by despotic leaders. Sharing the resource wealth across the country is one suggested way to defuse the threat of political conflict, usually by transferring part of the earnings to local area governments and, in particular, to the area where the natural resource is exploited, be it oil, diamonds or other minerals. In some cases, this fiscal devolution route has limited the conflict, if the amount transferred is large enough. However, in others it has triggered conflict by giving local dissidents the means to pay for insurrection.57 It turns out that the optimum way to defuse or prevent potential conflict is to pay direct cash transfers to all individuals, which would make it much more difficult for secessionist movements or local political parties to appropriate the resources. — Guy Standing

When I was younger, I used humour as a tool to avoid getting too serious with people - if there was deep emotional stuff going on, then I would crack a joke to defuse the situation. — Matthew Perry

On the third play he dropped back to pass, and it was unadulterated chaos: The pocket was immediately collapsing, people were yelling, everything was happening at the same time, and it felt like he was trying to defuse a pipe bomb while learning to speak Cantonese."
"He believed it was his destiny to kill faceless foreigners for complex reasons that were beyond his control, and to deeply question the meaning of those murders, and to kill despite those questions, and to eventually understand the meaning of his own life through the battlefield executions of total strangers."
"Teaching history to eighth graders is like being a tour guide for people who hate their vacation."
"There is no feeling that can match the emotive intensity of an attraction devoid of explanation. — Chuck Klosterman

The more useful approach is to ask, "Is this thought helpful? Does it help me take action to create the life I want?" If it's helpful, pay attention. If it's not, defuse it. — Russ Harris

Your past has not come full circle to its complete redemption until you allow Christ to not only defuse it, but also to use it. — Renee Swope

The first step to defuse a male in a wretched mood was to not toss new complaints upon the fire. — Erica Ridley

in Him we have the opportunity to defuse bombs the enemy has planted that are set to destroy what God has joined together. Are — Stormie O'martian

Request an apology when you believe you deserve one, but don't get in a tug of war about it. Instead, be a role model and tender a genuine apology yourself when an apology is due. Your willingness to apologize can be contagious and models maturity for your partner. Also, your non-apologizing partner may use a nonverbal way to reconnect after a fight, defuse the tension, or show you he's in a new place and wants to repair a disconnection. Accept the olive branch however it's offered. — Harriet Lerner

Enter no conflict against fanatics unless you can defuse them. Oppose a religion with another religion only if your proofs (miracles) are irrefutable or if you can mesh in a way that the fanatics accept you as god-inspired. This has long been the barrier to science assuming a mantle of divine revelation. Science is so obviously man-made. Fanatics (and many are fanatic on one subject or another) must know where you stand, but more important, must recognise who whispers in your ear. - Missionaria Protectiva, Primary Teaching. — Frank Herbert

The moment a large investor doesn't believe a government will pay back its debt when it says it will, a crisis of confidence could develop. Investors have scant patience for the years of good governance - politically fraught fiscal restructuring, austerity and debt rescheduling - it takes to defuse a sovereign-debt crisis. — Andrew Ross Sorkin

Our ability to offer empathy can allow us to stay vulnerable, defuse potential violence, help us hear the word 'no' without taking it as a rejection, revive lifeless conversation, and even hear the feelings and needs expressed through silence. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

Rule 3: 'Negative' thoughts are normal. Don't fight them; defuse them. — Russ Harris

The PRC is the big brother in this relationship, and it has the capacity to be generous to Taiwan on this issue in a manner that might do much to defuse that issue internally in Taiwan. — William Kirby

We can certainly defuse the intensity of the anti-immigrant feeling if we can bring some reality to the discussion by showing that they are not using that many resources. — Barbara Jordan

On every project, there are always areas that everyone wants to shy away from due to either the political environment or a desire for conflict avoidance. As an architect, you are responsible for asking the tough questions and raising the issues so that they can be dealt with. As you address issues, avoid making statements; instead, craft what you are seeking as a series of questions. This approach allows you to avoid presuming information to be factual and allows for a discussion to begin. Take time to qualify the questions with the context of why you are asking them. It can help defuse some of the political tensions — Anonymous

Caricatures are an important part of our culture of debate. They should defuse political spats through humor and irony. It is about making a strong statement but softening it with a wink. So Danes do not get too upset about caricatures. None of us is interested in insulting Muslims. — Anders Fogh Rasmussen

Sometimes you can defuse a difficult situation simply by being willing to understand the other person. Often all that people need is to know that someone else cares about how they feel and it attempting to understand their position. — Brian Tracy

Let the music defuse all the tension. — Kanye West

If but as well I other accents borrow
That can my speech defuse, my good intent
May carry through itself to that full issue
For which I razed my likeness. Now, banished Kent,
If thou canst serve where thou dost stand
condemned,
So may it come thy master, whom thou lov'st,
Shall find thee full of labors. — William Shakespeare

Knowing some Greek helped defuse forbidding words - not that I counted much on using them. You'll find only trace elements of this language in the poem. — James Merrill

Humility has such power. Apologies can disarm arguments. Contrition can defuse rage. Olive branches do more good than battle axes ever will. — Max Lucado

Way to defuse a situation. It's tough to enjoy a good bloodbath in the middle of a PowerPoint presentation. — Nina Bangs

I'm an intense guy. I run 10 miles a day, which helps alleviate my intensity. Also, singing helps defuse my intensity. Playing the piano helps, and writing helps. — Dan Hill

We need time to defuse, to contemplate. Just as in sleep our brains relax and give us dreams, so at some time in the day we need to disconnect, reconnect, and look around us. — Laurie Colwin

The quickest way to defuse fear or insecurity or anger is usually humor. I think comics figure that out quickly, and, once you figure it out, you think, 'Hey, if I can do this and get paid, that would be kind of cool.' — Billy Gardell

The transparency and intelligibility of a country with a free market economy can reassure its neighbors that it is not going on a war footing, which can defuse a Hobbesian trap and cramp a leader's freedom to engage in risky bluffing and brinkmanship. — Steven Pinker

The canard about the Civil Rights Movement is embedded within a larger deception that progressives uniformly put forward. This deception is intended to defuse the sordid history of the Democratic Party's two-century involvement in a parade of evils from slavery to segregation to lynching to forced sterilization to support for fascism to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. All these horrors are the work of the Democratic Party. — Dinesh D'Souza